Berni refuses to rule out Barracas warehouse fire as intentional

One week after the tragic blaze that hit a warehouse in the City warehouse of Barracas, Security Secretary Sergio Berni affirmed that investigators were not ruling out the possibility that the fire which claimed the lives of nine people was set intentionally.

Berni today explained that the fire still had not been extinguished, and that three Federal Police firefighters as well as one volunteer remained hospitalised.

"No line of investigation is being ruled out. Much less so in this case since the company [Iron Mountain] have suffered fires in other countries, and in one that occurred in the United States the New Jersey fire service chief himself revealed that it was intentional," the secretary added.

"We have to be prudent and not get ahead of ourselves in any way, but we cannot discard any possibilites."

Berni went on to reveal that prosecutor Marcela Sánchez, who was assigned to the case, has ordered a series of searches and raids in order to determine the cause of the tragedy, while he highlighted the request made by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner for the National Value Commission (CNV) to ask banks for details of the information stored in the warehouse.